


papercut

by firebreathing_bitchqueen



Series: Wayhaven Week 2020 [3]
Category: The Wayhaven Chronicles (Interactive Fiction)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Therapy, which the detective definitely needs honestly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:34:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25373221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firebreathing_bitchqueen/pseuds/firebreathing_bitchqueen
Summary: As the new human liaison for Wayhaven and the Agency, Detective Holland Townsend is required to undergo a period of psychological counseling and evaluation to ensure she’s handling the stresses of her new reality healthily, especially given the traumas that led to her involvement with the Agency and Unit Bravo. She is less than thrilled about the matter. (Wayhaven Week, Day 7: Mend)
Relationships: Female Detective/Nathaniel "Nate" Sewell
Series: Wayhaven Week 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1830454
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	papercut

“So, Detective Townsend. Holland – may I call you Holland? – how are you feeling today?”

“Holland is fine, please. And I’m good, thanks, how are you?”

“I’m well, thank you.”

She looks at me. I look at her.

At this stage, it’s very important, I mean _critical_ , that you do not break eye contact first. The sun filtering through the wall of east-facing windows makes this harder, but I take a deep, steady breath and smile gently as I exhale, tilting my head every so slightly to the left. My face, I know, is beatific. This smile and I have had years of practice. Dr. Weil doesn’t stand a chance. She’s smart, though; she’ll figure it out.

Right now, she thinks this is a battle of wits. As I said, she’s smart. She seems like someone who is good at her job, who is used to facing difficult, unwilling clients and coaxing them into trusting her. Clients who didn’t choose to come to therapy but were mandated to do so. Clients who thought they didn’t need to be here, who needed to be shown otherwise.

And maybe for other clients, she did help. Maybe for other clients, they were wrong, and they really _did_ need to be here, needed Dr. Weil to pull out the broken fragments of whatever hurt them that had healed wrong, stuck under ugly, misshapen scars.

I know all about scars. I even have two new ones, small, as healed as they could be considering the wounds, considering what _gave_ them to me, white twiggy equal signs snaking down my wrist. These are still out in the open, covered only by the ribbed cotton sleeve of my sweater.

Dr. Weil knows this, of course. Those scars are why I’m here, after all.

I don’t even let myself _think_ about looking at my left arm. I know why I’m here. She knows why I’m here. I’m not breaking eye contact to let her think I’m conscious of my newly healed scar tissue. This latest addition.

I know all about covering up scars, too. Making them beautiful. Making them look like art. I just haven’t had time to get to this one yet.

I lean back slightly in the overstuffed armchair, meant no doubt to inspire comfort. The Agency seems well versed in crafting artificially safe spaces out of ugliness. Another thing we have in common.

My gaze hasn’t left hers, though, and my calm, professional smile is still firmly in place. Bland, artfully cozy. As full of artificial sweetener as the woman in front of me. This office. This whole goddamn building.

Dr. Weil cracks first, like I knew she would. She thinks she’s letting me have this one, I’m sure. I can let her think that. She can think whatever she wants, as long as she sees that I Am Fine. That Everything Is Fine. That the encounter with Murphy – or whoever the fuck he actually is – hasn’t touched me anywhere that counts. That the new scars on my wrist are just normal, line-of-duty injuries. And what kind of detective doesn’t eventually have scores of those, after all?

I let my smile widen slightly, my eyes dipping down for just a moment as she clears her throat delicately to break the silence. A small concession on my part, or at least as she’ll see it. I want her to know I’m Fine, so I can play ball and be a little nice. Especially when I’m not the one who conceded to the silence.

“So, Holland.” Dr. Weil begins again. Pauses meaningfully. Smiles softly, _understandingly_ , at me. “As you know, the Agency requires an initial period of psychological evaluation and treatment, to be sure that you have the support systems necessary to help you adjust to this substantial shift in your understanding of, well, the new realities of which you’ve recently been made aware. You’re under a tremendous amount of stress. Anyone would be. That’s only been compounded, I’m afraid, by the recent events with the murders and epidemic in Wayhaven. Even the treaty with the maa-alused, which you so skillfully helped negotiate, I understand, can’t have been anything but stressful for you.”

“Nothing I can’t handle,” I say smoothly, a polite, professional smile briefly crossing my face before I let it lapse gently into a warm neutrality. I smile just long enough, I think, to seem open, approachable, imminently sane. When I let it fade, I smooth it into something that lets her know I am confident about my own sanity, that I am taking this appropriately seriously.

“I know,” Dr. Weil mirrors my smile and I feel the barest flicker of suspicion. She is good. But of course she is. And so am I, I remind myself.

She continues. “If the Agency thought you couldn’t handle this, they wouldn’t have asked that you become the new liaison for your town. But you know that, of course.” Her smile tics up a bare, quick millimeter broader, an unspoken nod to my competence. She wants me on her side. No, I correct myself. She wants me to know that she is on mine.

“But,” she pauses, smile fading, serious and understanding again. “What you’ve endured on top of the psychological trauma of having your sense of reality abruptly altered would be asking a lot of anyone. It _is_ asking a lot of anyone. Competence, unfortunately, only insulates one from so much, and very little without adequate additional healthy coping mechanisms. It’s important that we ensure you have all the resources you need to support you in this new role. And to be sure you’re able to move forward without feeling isolated. _Especially_ since you, like everyone associated with the Agency, have to endure the additional burden of secrecy in your daily life. It is a heavy burden for anyone. It says nothing about a person’s capabilities or strength.”

Her eyes, blue and warm, fix on mine. I manage to keep mine still, my face schooled into guilelessness.

“Yes, of course,” I agree pleasantly. “I’d be lying if I didn’t say everything that’s happened these last few months hadn’t seriously thrown me for a loop. Most people’s equanimity probably ends at _vampires_ , right?” I flash her a quick, casual grin of camaraderie. _Nothing to see here, folks._

She returns my smile, but her eyes stay focused. She hasn’t decided I’m a liar, yet, but she’s not buying my ready acceptance of the supernatural. Not unfair, I grant her in my head. Considering one of them kidnapped me for his mad-scientist shtick. And another one infected my town based on his own judgments of perceived guilt, using his downtime to pop into my bedroom mirror for late-night chats that were thinly veiled flirtations, more often than not.

“Is it important to you, Holland, that you be okay?” Those blue eyes are still fixed on my face, warm like the flames on my stovetop, and probably just as dangerous.

“I thought that was important to us all,” I say coolly. Still friendly, still open.

“Of course,” she amends with a slight, regal nod. “But you’ve emphasized a few times already that you’re doing very well in spite of everything that’s happened lately. To you. To people you care about. So, I wondered if perhaps you felt that you are _obligated_ to be okay.”

I have to clamp down on the impulse to roll my eyes. I think for a moment, regaining control over my face (too expressive, too human), considering which bone I can toss her, which one will be least missed by the skeletons subletting all my closets. Which phalange or tiny vertebra might let her think I’m Handling My Emotions?

I inhale slowly, deeply, offer a sober exhale. “No, but I like to remind myself that I am. I don’t feel obligated, exactly, but…well, I think I owe it to myself to be okay, you know?” I let my brows knit slightly, as if to say I know how sad my situation is, how seriously I take my wellness.

I find an underused cuboid and chuck it at her. “I’m just so fortunate to have gained a group of colleagues – friends, more like – with whom I can speak freely. Working with Unit Bravo…it keeps the secrecy much easier.”

And this is actually true. It’s a small bone, but a real one. Not large enough to buy me time to cover all the many mandatory hours I’ll spend with Dr. Weil, but enough for today, hopefully. Vulnerability that I can control, that doesn’t demand my living tissue.

_Friends, more like._ I think of Unit Bravo. I think of Nate. Of how I’d once – only a few weeks ago, though it feels like an age – called us friends, and the memory of his response, that _smile_ , makes something deep in my belly _tug_.

_Good ones, I hope_ , he’d said, with a broad, slow smile that made me wonder if, somehow, they’d all been lying when they’d told me my mutant blood made me immune to vampire pheromones.

_Good ones_ , indeed.

“I’m glad to hear it,” Dr. Weil says, although the intensity of her gaze has not diminished. “Social supports are so important. Especially those who understand the particular stresses of this line of work.”

“Yes,” I say, smiling at her. Soft, but bright. Offering something real. I let myself share the real happiness that bubbles in my chest when I think of the true friendship, the unexpected easiness of the trust and loyalty I’m beginning to feel for all of them. The genuine affection I feel for them already, even after such a short time.

Tina had teased me endlessly about this. After I’d confirmed her suspicions at the carnival, she’d immediately texted me on the drive home with Verda and Eric, asking me to come over as soon as I was done checking in on the carnival. Of course, I had so much more to tell her once I actually arrived (like how those vampires I’d just confirmed existed were my colleagues but, oh yeah, one of them was now my _boyfriend_ and had almost made me forget I had any plans beyond never not kissing him again), that it turned into a full-fledged sleepover.

It helped that Tina had answered her door holding a freshly opened bottle of tequila.

“You turned me down the last time I asked you to get drinks!” She beamed triumphantly at me, clearly having sampled the proffered liquor. “Your case is closed now, I _owe_ you congratulatory booze, Holls.”

“You know I can’t say no to tequila,” I had replied, stepping out of the dark street and into the warm glow of Tina’s apartment.

“And your mother?” Dr. Weil asks, breaking my reverie. “How has it been working with her these last few months?”

This woman wants her pound of flesh. Old, disused bones from my closet won’t satisfy her. Like all the old gods, therapists prefer live offerings. Psychological _habeas corpus_. Demands to see the body.

I have no idea what my mother may have shared with Dr. Weil, what old medical records may have been transferred to this office from my past. The proofs of purchase for all those closeted bones. I have no way of knowing if she’s awaiting my corporeal tithe out of the habits of her practice or because she knows that I am highly qualified to make such sacrifices. Does she know how many pounds of my flesh I’ve already offered to gods old and new? Perhaps she is too used to dealing with immortal creatures, whose bodies don’t bear the scars of old wounds even, I know, as their souls and minds still do.

Fine.

A papercut, tip of my finger.

“Well,” I begin, then pause, looking down. How do I even begin to answer that question? What to say?

_Well, Dr. Weil, it really fucking_ sucks _, actually. It’s super goddamn weird, if you really want to know._

The whole truth would be that it is deeply uncomfortable at best to be spending this much time with Rebecca. That, more often than not, I leave our interactions feeling like the worst, most petulant version of myself, and more than a little afraid of how easily that switch flips in me. Like all the work I’ve done over the years to grow from my teen angst bullshit into a functioning adult who mostly likes herself is more hologram than reality.

Papercut, I remind myself. Lots of bleeding, little actual damage. Besides, you’ve got, like, six more of these sessions to get through. No sense bleeding yourself dry in round one.

Tip of my finger.

_***_

When I finally emerge from Dr. Weil’s office and exit the Facility into the pink glow of early summer afternoon, I feel a little dazed and disoriented, like I’ve entered the liminal space I usually associate with unexpected weekend naps or sunshine after a long midday movie. Perhaps that’s why it takes me a moment to register the familiar long shadow leaning against the tree under which I’d parked my car.

“Nate?” The figure straightens as I approach, emerging from the shade of the tree to meet me, and I can’t help the smile that breaks over my face, the little bubble of surprise and delight that fizzes in my stomach.

He smiles back at me, looking pleased at my reaction.

“I thought we were meeting up later,” I say as we both draw to a stop beside my car, looking up at him. When I mentioned, days ago, that I apparently would have to participate in this _Grand-Guignol_ charade (a term Rebecca did _not_ appreciate when I repeated it to her amidst sundry other complaints when she informed me of the psychological evaluation requirements I needed to meet), Nate had suggested we do something fun afterward to at least end the day on a more positive note. I’d chosen to believe the suggestion had more to do with his general thoughtfulness and less to do with how transparently irritated I’d been at the prospect of spending a rare day off in a mandated therapy session.

“We were,” he agrees. “But I thought I’d surprise you.” A shadow of a frown passes over his face, then, and he presses his hands deeper into his pockets. “Which I hope is okay?”

I catch my bottom lip with my teeth to quell the smile that threatens to spill over my face like sunshine. “Definitely okay.”

He doesn’t bother containing his smile. “Okay, good. I wasn’t sure, but I thought you might like the company.”

“Well, I appreciate your sacrifice.” I attempt to wrangle my face into something like a serious expression, but it quickly reverts to a grin at his bemusement.

“The serious lack of leg room, I mean,” I incline my head towards my old silver hatchback, which is a perfect size for someone my height but significantly less so for his.

“Ah,” he chuckles softly. “A small price to pay for the pleasure of your company.”

My grin widens and I shake my head, reaching for the handle of my car door. “There you go again, trying to make me swoon, Agent.”

His fingers close around the door handle before mine can and he opens it for me. “It does seem to have an impeccable success rate, Detective,” and the knee-buckling smile he throws me has me glad I’ve already slid into the driver’s seat. 


End file.
